


Expectation (versus reality)

by NekoAisu



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: (also not graphically described), (it's one (1) singular nosebleed that is quickly treated), Flirting, Getting Together, Idiots in Love, Kissing, M/M, Minor Injuries, Sparring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-09-16 12:07:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16953708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NekoAisu/pseuds/NekoAisu
Summary: Nyx is expecting the prince to be a slight pushover─there’s no way he can be one 100% with an Amicitia breathing down his neck─but then he’s staring up at Noctis who still has blood on his shirt from the first botched warp, smiling like he wasn’t just laid flat by a kid who is barely twenty with no experience in battle to think of.He wants to kiss him.So he does.(Alternately titled: How To Get Infinite Gate Duty, a Guide by Nyx Ulric)





	Expectation (versus reality)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [littlecakes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlecakes/gifts).



> Happy holidays to the lovely littlecakes! It's an honor to be able to gift you this piece <3 I hope you enjoy!

Of all things to come out of his apparent wish for arguably honorable discharge, Nyx is not expecting babysitting duty.

He’d not be surprised if Drautos had told him he’d finally managed to make himself so much an inconvenience that his bi-monthly reassignments had become permanent. He’s still not quite sure why it is his heroism is called insubordination if it’s “for hearth and home” (but, really, nothing his commanding officer says tends to align with his orders as it is). He just knows that standing around at a gate while surrounded by uptight Insomnian-born soldiers in riot gear isn’t his idea of a good time.

“─and on that vein, can I place my full trust in you as a caretaker for his Majesty’s son?”

“Yessir,” Nyx answers, standing at parade rest. He doesn’t dare ask _why_ it is that Regis requested his son train with the ‘Glaive (especially not with how much most Insomnians hate outsiders), but he’s not about to reject the bonus pay the post comes with.

“Alright then, Ulric,” Drautos says, holding out a folder of which he’s decently sure contains state secrets, and motions for the door. “You’re dismissed.”

Nyx takes the materials and nearly bolts, walking at a reasonable pace just until he closes the door behind him. There is no way he can convince Tredd that he was not, in fact, sprinting down the hall like he had a Diamond Weapon on his tail. He beats a hasty retreat to the training grounds, slamming the collection of papers down on a bench and burying his face in his hands. He groans and it’s a deeply frustrated noise.

Crowe sidles up next to him smelling of ash and brimstone and remarks, “Good luck with gate duty, Hero.”

“You know,” he starts,  face still very much buried in his hands, “that dealing with those particular assholes may be easier than babysitting the crown prince, right?” There’s a long moment between when Crowe slaps him on the back and when he finally deems it necessary to look through the proffered assignment. “Leviathan’s _gullet_ , I am so screwed.”

The first page is a full profile combined with a set of schedules Nyx is fairly sure as so jam-packed with events that they’re a misprint of multiple overlapping calendars. He checks through all of them. There’s an hour-long section carved out in the early morning with the words LIVE COMBAT TRAINING printed in a font Nyx is fairly sure didn’t need to be put in all capitals (it’s already neatly bolded and annoyingly difficult to read).

He squints at the smaller, somehow more illegible text in the boxes that follow it. There are appointments, audiences, more training in so many subjects and skills Nyx is decently sure his head will explode just trying to remember them all. Then, there are the five hours or so that are solidly empty from eleven p.m. to four a.m., presumably meant for sleep, but Nyx has a feeling the prince sleeps less than that. He skims the medical information, eyes catching on the current medications section. He recognizes the painkillers listed as ones he’s used before after major injures and wonders why something that strong is followed by a note reading: “taken as needed.”

He’s fairly sure the last time he’d taken any of them, he’d been high as a kite for hours. He wonders if it’s for the back injury his Highness had recovered from years ago (although, wouldn’t his medical file have been updated since then?). He deems it unworthy of possible exile to ask and flips to the actual details of his assignment.

It’s just a list of the basics.

They’re pulling him from the field to teach Regis’s kid the _basics._ There’s not even a section on there for any serious tactical drills.

Nyx blinks. The words do not change. They don’t somehow give him more of a challenge.

When he slams his head into the locker behind him, it hurts less than the headache building at the front of his skull. Crowe laughs at him and calls, “Good luck!”

He’s fairly sure he’ll need more than just that to get through this trial of absolute Insomnian idiocy.

When his alarm goes off in the morning at exactly three o’ clock, Nyx regrets ever signing up for the Kingsglaive. Scratch that, he regrets ever moving into _Insomnia._

He drags himself from bed and scrubs a hand over his face, blinking blearily at the window of his dinky apartment. His snags a shirt from the clothesline in front of his bed and narrowly avoids slamming his shin into the corner of his makeshift coffee table.

Making himself presentable goes just as quickly as always, save a minor nick during shaving born from fatigue and never carelessness. He takes the bus into the inner city, hopping on the rail and nearly dozing off by the time his stop is called over the intercom. He shoulders his bag and makes for the Citadel, crossing too-busy streets and ignoring how night watchmen stare too long like his fatigues are somehow not inherently his.

He waves to the morning shift guards like they aren’t glaring holes in his back when he swipes his CiD on the terminal, lights blinking from red to green before he can push past the turnstile. There are others filtering into the main Citadel facilities, but they’re mostly cleaning staff and the next round of ‘Guards. He’s left to himself during the walk to the Kingsglaive Combat Center (the same building they all call KFC after Crowe had joked about it being more a ritualistic fight club than actual gym─hence the wildly more popular acronym and accompanying name of Kingsglaive Fight Club). The too-crisp air of Insomnian springtime nips at his cheeks like it’s playing at being anything but stale.

The sun is still far from rising when he unlocks the main doors with another swipe of his card and dumps his duffel on the floor by his locker. He’s expecting the usual asscrack-of-dawn silence when he strides out and into the mess that is the KCC “first floor.”

He hears the familiar rending of the space Between before he sees the sparks from a warp and the weapon said maneuver is attached to. He side steps when the godsdamn prince of Lucis manages to fling himself full force into the wall.

Nyx isn’t sure if he’s even allowed to help the kid up when he asks tentatively, “You… uh… alright there, Highness?”

Noctis seems to be making a valiant attempt at assimilating with the dusty earth that is the first floor, nose dripping blood at a worrying pace onto his shirt while he holds a hand over it. He yanks a curative from the arsenal like it’s easier to pinpoint items and summon them to his hands than it was to control a warp.

“Not sure that’s a good idea yet,” he warns, crouching down to be level with his charge. “Don’t wanna set that wrong on accident. Trust me.” He rifles around in his coat pockets for something to soak up the blood still sliding down the prince’s face and comes up with half a handkerchief he’d swiped from Pelna the week before. Nyx is pretty sure he’ll not want it back, after this.

Noctis tips his head back for all of a second before spitting out a glob of lurid red saliva. “Fuckin’ _hurts,”_ he complains, but shoves the potion back into his arsenal. He drops his hand and Nyx winces.

“Not to be insubordinate, but that looks _awful.”_

Noctis flips him off with one rather red middle finger and grits out, “So, do I use a curative, or not, Hero?” He flicks some more blood off his hands and grimaces at the state of his glove.

“Well, it doesn’t look broken─and I’ve seen a _lot_ of broken noses,” Nyx answers. “You should be fine. I’d suggest getting it checked out after this, though.” He watches carefully, this time, when Noctis grabs himself a potion. He’s fairly sure the slight pink tint to the crown prince’s eyes in the split second before he blinks is a hallucination.

(He’d only seen that once before and it was a dream of lightning and sea storms the night before Galahd had fallen. He’d dreamed of a King to end all kings, one who was more godly than the Astrals themselves. The young man staring at him with blood smeared across his cheek is a far cry from that image.)

When Noctis slams the potion into his chest with a sigh of relief. His voice, previously nasally, evens out to its usual cadence when he jokes, “Thanks for saving me from those headlines, man. I can see them now: _“Heir to the throne’s ugly new nose job? More on page seven!”_ ”

They both laugh at that, Nyx holding out a hand in offering. “Wanna clean up a little and then show me what you’ve got? I doubt that’s really all you’re packing.” He tries for casual and very nearly fails when Noctis’s face takes on a pink tinge out to the ears.

Noctis picks himself up and walks too stiffly to the showers without so much as half a reply.

“O-kay then.”

In the three or so minutes it takes for Noctis to get moderately presentable, Nyx falls into a pattern of tossing his kukris in high arcs while he waits. He’s absorbed in watching the metal glitter softly in the beginnings of the sunrise when the prince walks back up, startling ever so slightly when Noctis asks, “So _you’re_ my tutor?”

Nyx raises a brow, lips quirked in a lopsided smile, and inquires in a tone far too sultry for the setting, “What, expected someone else? Is the hero of the Kingsglaive not enough for you, Highness?”

Noctis plays at ambivalence and shrugs, blade flashing where it materializes in his hand. “Possibly. I still haven’t made up my mind.” He strides out into the open space of the field, sword in hand an open invitation to get started with the lesson they were supposed to already have been working their way through.

 _“Well_ then,” Nyx murmurs, eyes focused a little too intently on the ─not _his._ The kingdom’s. Lucis’s. Not someone Nyx can hope to ever attain─ prince’s retreating figure (or rather, his ass) to be anything but deserving of charges for treason. He follows after and tucks his kuris back into their sheaths. “You can put that away, Highness,” he calls, “we’re only working on hand to hand today.”

“I thought the plan was─”

“Warping basics? Yeah,” Nyx interjects, “but I have a feeling you’ll have more fun this way.”

Noctis blinks slowly at him, brows crawling toward his hairline before he spits, _“Fun?”_

Nyx nods, seemingly pleased with himself. “Yep. It’s early enough I’m pretty sure even Bahamut’s scaly ass isn’t up yet and you’re supposed to do drills? Fuck that.”

Noctis seems taken aback for all of a second before he lets loose a laugh, half a snort caught up in the sound, and it’s such a genuine reaction that Nyx feels himself smile in this usual easy way without having to force it. “I don’t think da-his _Majesty_ thought this through well enough. Oh my _gods,”_ he wheezes, grinning.

“Ready to start?”

 _“Hell_ yeah. Come at me, Hero.”

Noctis regrets _so_ many things. He wishes he could regret this, how he plays along with Nyx’s antics so easily, but when those calloused hands adjust his grip and slide so steadily along his arms, he’s one hundred percent sure he’s going to look back at this during his golden years and wonder why he doesn’t just turn his head ever so slightly and steal a kiss.

He settles into his stance for the tenth time that morning and tries again. Every jab is met by a block, sweeping kicks avoided fluidly, and Noctis is barely aware of how he latches onto Nyx’s patterns before he’s rushing forward, hand gripping him by the lapels and left leg tangling around the Glaive’s before they’re both toppling to the ground.

Nyx stares up at him and smiles nearly brighter than the dawn, eyes crinkling with the force of it. He’d been expecting the prince to be a slight pushover─there’s no way in fresh hell he’d manage to be _completely_ hapless with an Amicitia breathing down his neck─but then he’s staring up at Noctis who still has blood on his shirt from the first botched warp and his brain spits out the dumbest idea he’s had to date.

He wants to kiss him.

So he pulls down the gods-ordained King of Light by the collar of his shirt and does exactly that. The dazed and nearly reverent look Noctis gives him in return is worth more than every battle he’s won.

Noctis whispers, “Can we do that again?”

Nyx replies with a cocky, “So I take it you’re satisfie─”

Noctis shuts him up with myriad kisses.

If he’s sentenced to yet _another_ bout of gate duty, Nyx can’t find it in himself to regret it. Not when Noctis slips into the KCC to skip council meetings and ends up commiserating with Crowe over how terrible the food is at fancy events, or how he and Libertus both like the same daytime TV drama. Not when he has his fingers tangled pleasantly tight in his hair, lips locked and hands long since strayed to places they shouldn’t be. Not when it’s five years later and they’re both wearing matching rings, beads shining like magic and might behind Noctis’s ear same as they do Nyx.

“Hey, Hero,” Noctis calls from the third floor of the KCC while watching the love of his life get his ass handed to him by none other than the one and only rather decorated Marshall Altius, “try not to die. I have the night off.”

Nyx barely managed to dodge a gout of flame before yelling back, “Got it! Love you, Noct!”

If anyone catches the bright flush on his Royal Majesty’s cheeks, they do not comment on it. Nyx opens his mouth to follow up when Crowe’s boot lands solidly on his chest, kicking him to the ground while smoke wafts from her hands.

When he finally manages to get home, to their all too luxurious wing of the Citadel that Nyx has slowly made his own (starting with actually _brightening the damn place up),_ Noctis hooks his arms around his neck and says, nearly worshipful, “I love you, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments, kudos, and concrit are all encouraged and greatly appreciated!
> 
> ((don't mind me bumping the post date up so this actually looks as new to the archive as it is))


End file.
